


and then the letting go

by lordbirthdayxv



Series: Undernourished Egos [2]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Back Together, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordbirthdayxv/pseuds/lordbirthdayxv
Summary: after great pain, a formal feeling comes
Relationships: Im Changkyun | I.M/Yoo Kihyun
Series: Undernourished Egos [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116836
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	and then the letting go

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this emily dickinson poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47651/after-great-pain-a-formal-feeling-comes-372)

_Tell me._

Kihyun’s wide eyes are bowlfuls of water. _What?_

_Tell me how it felt._

_How what felt?_

_When you touched him. When he touched you. Everything._

All around them, people go about their wicked way, eating and drinking, and laughing. Changkyun wonders if Kihyun chose this to soften the blow and its fallout. Then decides he doesn’t want to do either.

_Was it good?_

Kihyun squirms like a pasty shrimp pulled out of water. Changkyun watches, amused.

_Would you mind not doing this?_

_Doing what?_

_This! Asking me all this stuff as if-_

_But you did enjoy it. A pause. Didn’t you?_

He is aware that the middle-aged woman and her companion behind him are listening in. Kihyun’s eyes dart fretfully to their table and settle to glare at Changkyun. _I came clean. Now decide._

There is an unfamiliar, warm urgency flowing in his veins and he can’t quite understand what it is. Then he realizes it is violence. He looks at Kihyun, that affronted butterfly, and smiles. 

_I don’t want to._

_Why?!_

_You know why._

He gets to his feet and holds out a hand to Kihyun who is all furrowed brow and parted lips. _Let’s go home._

And they go. Snow collects steadily on the roof of the car. Changkyun drives slowly, winding his way through the evening traffic with practiced ease as his mind slips into the fogginess of memory. He used to put a lot of stock in memory, especially everything with Kihyun in it. Now, it is tinted with the jaundiced light of betrayal, sunburst on dark film. 

Kihyun places a tentative hand on his thigh and Changkyun jolts, a wild synapse of pain shooting straight to his chest. Kihyun, nervous, tries to retract his hand but Changkyun grabs it and puts it back on his leg, breathing evening out painfully slow. 

_I don’t think-_

__

__

_I want it_. Changkyun grits his teeth, knuckles white on the steering wheel. _I want you._

Ego peccator. And thus, you are judged. 

Home greets them with its gaping maw of loneliness as they take off their shoes at the entrance. Kihyun turns on the light in the hallway and finds the walls closing in on them. Changkyun takes his hand and leads him to their bedroom, head bowed as the house pelts them with horrible wails and throws insults like stones. 

He slams the door and leans against it, chest heaving. There is a hand on his chest and another in his hair, a wet cheek against his. He lets out a pained sob and collapses into Kihyun’s arms, wraps himself like a thread of dependency around him. 

_You’ve hurt me_ , he repeats through his tears, _I’m hurting because of you._

And Kihyun takes him to bed, holds him in his arms, tenderness overpowering guilt for as long as Changkyun weeps and shakes against him.

That night, he dreams of a wasted Kihyun shrouded in plum-coloured robes, emaciated fingers linked together as he kneels before an altar overflowing with angry, orange flowers. _Mea culpa_ , he says, tears running like rivers down his sunken cheeks, _mea maxima culpa_ and Changkyun, strung up in the air with long locks of hair, bears down on his sinner, pronounces his sentence in the mildewed voice of a martyred god. 

He wakes up with Kihyun clinging to his neck, his soft hair tickling Changkyun’s nose. He sleeps the sleep of the pardoned and Changkyun wonders if the punishment is more so for his own benefit than Kihyun’s. 

Kihyun stirs and shifts away from him, lies on his back, open and vulnerable. Winter makes itself known then, its chill settling in Changkyun’s bones and crawling an icy path up his spine. His hand makes its way to Kihyun’s neck, long, slender, and unmarked. Closes loosely around it. Kihyun’s pulse beats delicately against the thin skin between Changkyun’s thumb and forefinger. 

Just a bit of pressure, skin bruising like juice-filled fruit, bone snapping like a walnut shell. Anger and its sister violence perch lewdly on either side of the bed, watching with their terrible eyes, saliva collecting at the corners of their sneering mouths. It is righteous, they whisper with chthonic fury, it is just. 

It is tempting. 

But Kihyun is beautiful and Changkyun is only human. 

Shame worms its way into his heart and he pulls himself away and out of bed. Throws on a robe and walks barefoot to the balcony. Flings the doors open. December flutters in like powder on the wind, touching Kihyun’s sleeping skin and raising gooseflesh in its wake. He moans and burrows underneath the covers. Changkyun, thinly clad, steps out.

Neighborly quiet washes over him as he lights a cigarette with shaking fingers. Thick smoke mingling with clouds of his own breath, dancing on the air in front of him. He inhales quickly and it burns a vengeful path up his nose. He thinks of Kihyun, of smoke hitting and scattering against his lovely face, of alien hands pressing their dirty prints into his skin. Speaking in tongues and mystifying his senses. It burns.

He puts out the half diminished stick on the iced over railing where it bends and wilts like a broken flower stalk. His heart races as he walks back in, quick steps carrying him to the bed. He turns Kihyun over and cups his face with his cold hands. A thin whine slips past Kihyun’s lips as his eyes blink open.

_Changkyun-_

_I love you._

Confusion. And then alarm. _Are you okay? You’re freezing! The window-_

Changkyun kisses him, the blue of his lips against Kihyun’s chapped red. They work up a rhythm, rusty and old, Kihyun’s panic melting like butter on the tip of Changkyun’s tongue. Changkyun presses him into the mattress, kissing the poison out of him, sucking some of his life with it for good measure. Kihyun gasps, heart hammering against his ribcage and Changkyun puts a hand there, pressing gently, pleading with it. 

_Mine_ , he whispers, _still mine._

And it takes a few seconds for Kihyun to understand. To catch up and pull Changkyun crushingly close. To kiss him back. For his heart to beat _yours, yours, still yours_ against Changkyun’s palm. 

Simul justus et peccator. I decree your sentence and put us both to death.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ajghar1)


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